F 

F*T4 




ANCIENT TOMBS OF PALENQUE, 



BY 



EDWARD H. THOMPSON. 



'/0\J 




Class / tLf3<5~ 

Book rpjL. J if 



SMITHSONIAN UKl'OSiT. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/ancienttombsofpaOOthom 




ANCIENT TOMB, PALENQUE. 



ANCIENT TOMBS OF PALENQUE, 



BY 



EDWAED H. THOMPSON. 



FROM PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN 
SOCIETY, OCTOBER, 1895. 



WORCESTER, MASS , U. S. A. 

PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON, 

311 Main Street, 

1896. 



ANCIENT TOMBS OF PALENQUE. 



South, sixty degrees west, of the so-called Temple of the 
Cross No. 1, and about two-thirds down the western slope 
of the pyramid, I discovered a series of sealed tombs. 
These were, for the most part, so destroyed by the roots of 
large trees and by the breaking away of the face of the 
pyramid, that their original outline could only be conject- 
ured. But I had the good fortune to encounter one practi- 
cally intact, and from this I gleaned the following facts :— 
The tomb itself was built into the side of the pyramid 
and formed a small rectangular room six feet eight inches 
long, by six feet wide, and seven feet high. It was well 
built of lime material and stones, and had the appearance of 
having been once smooth-finished with white stucco. Of 
this stucco hardly a vestige now remains in place, but the 
floor of the tomb was covered with its finely disintegrated 
fragments. The roof was vaulted after that form of the 
corbel vault known as the Maya arch. In the centre of 
this tomb was a rectangular stone burial-case, five feet long, 
two feet wide, and one and one-half feet high, each side of 
which was formed of two smooth-finished stone slabs, each 
two inches thick. The inner slabs were sunken below the 
edges of the outer, sufficiently to allow the slab that served 
as a cover to be let down flush with the edges, thus form- 
ing a well-finished, decent and simple deposit for the dead. 
The top of the burial-case was covered with dtbris that 
time and dampness had hardened into a cemented mass. 
Carefully clearing off this adherent material, I found upon 
the exposed surface the votive offerings of the ancient 



mourners, consisting of a small, broken, terra-cotta effigy 
of a warrior, with flowing plumes and other warrior vest- 
ments, lance heads, jade beads, and terracotta pendants, all 
broken purposely before being placed within the tomb, as 
the position of the fragments indicated. This ancient cus- 
tom of breaking the burial offerings prevailed to some 
extent in Yucatan, as my excavations have shown. Lift- 
ing the heavy top, I found the remains of two skele- 
tons, but so utterly decomposed that a touch destroyed 
them. • One was lying upon its side with its arms and knees 
drawn up toward the chin. The other was so nearly oblit- 
erated by the many streams of water that had entered 
through the joints of the case, opened by some disturbance 
of the pyramid base, that its exact position could not be 
ascertained. A small earthen jar, a bowl-shaped vessel, 
some jade beads and a beautifully engraved spinning-whorl 
of jade were found in the grave, which was carefully 
recovered and left to undisturbed quiet for perhaps another 
lapse of centuries. 

About twenty-five yards to the north of this sepulchre lies 
the now shapeless mound that holds a veritable Chamber 
of the Dead. A narrow opening in the top of the mound, 
two feet, five inches wide by six feet long, once securely 
sealed by heavy slabs of worked stone cemented into place, 
leads down a stairway of six steps, ending in a platform 
three feet by four and one-half feet ; two more steps at 
right angles to the others give one the entrance to a narrow 
chamber fourteen feet, three inches long, six feet, seven 
inches wide, and eight feet, four inches high. The left- 
hand wall of this chamber has no opening. The cement 
has mostly dropped off and its place is supplied by count- 
less brilliant points of lime incrustations, and from the 
vaulted roof depend innumerable stalactites. The right- 
hand wall of the chamber has three small openings, each 
five feet, four inches long by two feet, six inches wide, 
solidly sealed with cement and stone, but now opened by 



the finder, Mr. German Kohler, a resident of Palenque. 
Through the first opening I crawled, and descending one 
step, found myself in a well-planned burial chamber of the 
same general shape as the one discovered by me, but larger, 
being seven feet long by six feet^ wide, and ten feet, ten 
inches high. This chamber held no burial-case, the skele- 
ton lying directly upon the cement floor of the chamber, 
and so far as I could ascertain the body was placed with 
the head toward the north, and the votive offering, a simple 
shallow vase, on a line with the right shoulder. 

The second chamber, of the same general size and 
appearance as the first, held near its centre a large, well- 
made case, five feet long by two feet wide, and two feet 
high, of smooth, handsome slabs of stone, in general 
appearance resembling the burial-case in the grave which I 
discovered. This case held, beside the skeleton, two ves- 
sels, one bowl-shaped and the other like a huge ladle, both 
of hard-burned clay, two obsidian blades eight inches long, 
and one spindle-whorl of terra-cotta. 

The third chamber, similar in size and shape to the pre- 
ceding, held one body placed directly upon the cement 
floor of the tomb, but covered by two large stone slabs 
placed tent-wise, one resting against the other, with the 
open ends covered by smaller slabs, all securely cemented 
into place. Underneath this curious, yet effective burial- 
case, was resting a single skeleton and one ordinary shallow 
vessel. 

At the southwest corner of the great chamber was found 
a skeleton placed with head toward the west, with an orna- 
mental clay vessel close by the left shoulder. This prin- 
cipal chamber opens on the west into a smaller one, in real- 
ity a continuation, but separated by a half-wall. This 
smaller room also held a skeleton without burial case of any 
description. In the wall appears an opening leading to a 
tomb, probably similar to those already described, but the 
top and sides of this portion of the structure have caved 



in, and much excavation would be necessary before inves- 
tigations could be made. 

The visit to Palenque having been made simply for com- 
parative study, it was, of course, impossible to undertake 
work requiring any great excavation. 

As I have before stated, the walls and ceilings of tombs 
and chambers were covered with stalactites and lime coat- 
ing. The floors were of hard stucco, colored an ochreous 
yellow by time and use. The deposit of lime and yellow 
dirt, etc., had covered the floor to a depth of nine inches 
with a hard cement, adhering to the floor as if both were 
but one coherent mass. Perpetual humidity prevailed in 
this structure, which is subterraneous now, whatever it may 
have been originally. 

What was the original shape of the mound I cannot say. 
One who has not visited the forests of Palenque cannot 
imagine the inextricable confusion of great roots, over- 
turned tree-trunks, climbing vines, and decaying vegeta- 
tion, that buries everything under a seething, gloomy, 
deceptive covering. One step forward may land one on a 
fallen column, and the next bury one waist-deep in the 
rotten trunk of a fallen forest giant among scorpions and 
biting ants. To clear off the covering of vegetation and 
vegetable mould would have been a serious task, that I 
could not undertake. 

I think that on the summit of the mound covering the 
Chamber of the Dead was once a structure, but to ascer- 
tain what it was and make a perfected plan of the whole, 
will have to be a work of the future. 

Never was time laid out to better advantage than was 
ours at Palenque. The indefatigable Prof. W. H. Holmes 
did the work of three men in his chosen line. We worked 
measuring, studying and noting by day, plotting, revising 
notes and comparing by night, resting just enough to keep 
us alive, relying on the future sea-trip to give us rest and 
restore us to good condition. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 







■** 'MMk- 



<mfci : 



%**mwm** 




5»». ii^ •wlKB'^'SWi 



